Share this:

NEW YORKERS, particularly during wintertime, tend to cling to the fantasy that life would be pretty much perfect if only we could spend our winters lolling around on various remote islands. So why do so few of us actually live the dream? Beyond the whole time and money thing, it might be because making this particular fantasy takes a whole lot of work.

While recently on other business in Panama City, I decided to see if I could hack the trek to seclusion. The destination: Isla Pelikano (Pelican Island). It’s one of approximately 400 blots of land that form the San Blas archipelago along Panama’s north coast. Pelikano is dirt-cheap to visit, easy going, fun. What could go wrong?

My husband and I bought tickets. We were going to cast ourselves away on purpose. As an experiment, of course.

Suggestion: Don’t start your great escape too early. For instance, don’t book a 6 a.m. flight on a puddle jumper, particularly when the trip is only 30 minutes. Take it slow. Have breakfast. Then fly.

Groggy and breakfastless, we landed shortly in Cartí – still on the mainland, but closer to our destination. Then we waited. And waited. Finally, after two hours of hoping our boatman would materialize, we were informed that he was out of town. On business.

Turns out, we shouldn’t have waited – there were plenty of other boatmen, each eager to make a buck. (Fifteen bucks, to be precise.) These are not yachts, however. Around these parts, a “boat” is actually a dug-out canoe fitted with motors – 15 horsepower if you’re lucky.

Hunched over a wooden bench, I was exhausted and hot, the Caribbean sun already searing my New York pale.

Still, I had faith in our plan. The surroundings were beautiful. We were skirting over glassy aquamarine water past dozens of mostly uninhabited islands, the kind that resemble a child’s drawing of a tropical island-small, round, and sandy, with big, happy palm trees.

An hour later, we arrived at petite, palm-covered Pelikano. After being shown to our bamboo hut, one of five on the island, we eyed the two (sandy) twin beds and opted for a nap in the hammock.

Only when I awoke could I take stock of my surroundings. The hammock was slung between two coconut palms on the conch-strewn shoreline of the twinkling Caribbean, which was also 10 feet from our doorless hut. I could easily imagine we had the whole place to ourselves – I could hear only the wind and sea.

My assumption turned out to be correct: We were nearly alone. Our only company was Lee, an Israeli backpacker, and the two Kuna staff members running the place in the owner’s absence. (The San Blas Islands, also known as Kuna Yala, are a major component of the Kuna Indians’ semiautonomous homeland, which explains why the archipelago doesn’t already resemble the Florida Keys.)

I asked Lee, who’d been on-island for several days, what she recommended we do.

“You don’t want to do anything,” she said.

Our three days as castaways were absurdly relaxing, consisting of idle swimming and snorkeling and structured only by three daily meals (mostly fish with coconut rice).

Seizing the Crusoe spirit, my husband did attempt to catch dinner the local way – fishing with a hook and string – but he did so from a lazy perch on a blow-up raft. (It didn’t work.)

For respite from the sun, I’d hit my hammock to read or watch spellbound as the resident pelicans swooped and dove for fish.

After dinner we sipped the rum we’d brought from Panama City and played cards, jokingly scanning the horizon for nonexistent banditos. Swimming by moonlight became a preferred bedtime ritual.

We may not have had to fend for ourselves, but this was a rustic paradise, to be sure. Pelikano has no running water, and though a few solar panels power the refrigerator, the drinks inside were never actually cold.

Nothing much is available on the island save those three meals (beer, water, and soda can be purchased, when/if in stock.) Everything was rather disorganized. English was not generally spoken. We came to equate such challenges with charms; for those who don’t, other nearby islands offer more services and amenities, though no chain resorts – yet.

Can this paradise be preserved? I certainly hope so.

THE LOWDOWN

GO: Our flight on Air Panama from Panama City to Cartí cost $35 each way – info at flyairpanama.com.